
Rhiannon: A Surprising Summer Term
Servants and Schoolgirls in Wartime
Charlotte Ryton(Author)
Troubador Publishing
Published on 28. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-1-80634-162-7 (ISBN)
Description
In World War Two Rhiannon is still a servant in a boarding school, but determined to get ahead, studies in every spare moment for the RSA exams leaving time only for her other passion - Girl Guides. She makes a wireless with her Guide friends and picks up a strange coded signal. Is it kids mucking around? Criminals? Or even Nazi agents?
Then some other working class girls - Alice and Josie - get scholarships to the school so Rhiannon must cope with her jealousy.
But it isn't all jam for Alice, one of the scholarship girls, as she struggles with a stammer. She is brutally teased and runs away. Then one of Alice's tormentors loses her beloved horse and Alice finds it. Rhiannon is on a Guide trek, hears the call for help and goes to help. A love of horses brings the girls together so they start to make friends.
At the same time some of Rhiannon's fellow domestics make it difficult for her to study as if the hours she has to spend cleaning and doing kitchen work weren't enough.
Then there's a possibility of a new opportunity for Rhiannon to work in a factory with day release classes. Should she take it or is the teaching she gets at the school better?
Then some other working class girls - Alice and Josie - get scholarships to the school so Rhiannon must cope with her jealousy.
But it isn't all jam for Alice, one of the scholarship girls, as she struggles with a stammer. She is brutally teased and runs away. Then one of Alice's tormentors loses her beloved horse and Alice finds it. Rhiannon is on a Guide trek, hears the call for help and goes to help. A love of horses brings the girls together so they start to make friends.
At the same time some of Rhiannon's fellow domestics make it difficult for her to study as if the hours she has to spend cleaning and doing kitchen work weren't enough.
Then there's a possibility of a new opportunity for Rhiannon to work in a factory with day release classes. Should she take it or is the teaching she gets at the school better?
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Market Harborough
United Kingdom
Target group
Children/juvenile
Interest Age: From 9 to 11 years
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
527 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80634-162-7 (9781806341627)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Charlotte Ryton worked as a maid in a boarding school before attending University. She then went on to teach in various schools and wrote historical plays. She was involved in the productions of Daughters of Jerusalem, Katherine the Queen (which she wrote with her father, Royce Ryton) and Sergeant Daisy. Charlotte lives in Hampshire.